Surprise! None of the pictured fragrances are muguet fragrances. They were featured in an article in Brides magazine on pairing a wedding day fragrance with one’s bridal bouquet: A Perfect Pair: The Best Fragrances for Lily of the Valley Wedding Bouquets. The article points out that a wedding day perfume can clash with or complement a strongly fragrant bouquet — for instance, one full of lilies of the valley, like the bouquet I carried. (NB: I don’t recall exactly what fragrance I wore on my own wedding day but I strongly suspect it was Diorissimo, as I had a bottle of it then and wore it often. And yes, it was pre-reformulation! Sigh).

Interestingly, the writer suggests complementary, non-muguet scents to go with the lilies of the valley in the bouquet. Specifically, the recommendations include Jo Malone’s English Pear and Freesia, Giorgio Armani’s Acqua di Gioia, and Diptyque’s L’Eau de Neroli. The idea seems to be to combine the scent of the bouquet with other notes like orange blossom, freesia, jasmine and citrus.

By the way, Kate Middleton’s wedding bouquet was primarily lilies of the valley, containing up to 100 stems by one florist’s estimation:

Kate Middleton’s wedding bouquet, full of lilies of the valley. Photo from http://www.sprout-flowers.com

Another view:

Kate Middleton and her lilies-of-the-valley bouquet.

Kate wore a British perfume, Illuminum’s White Gardenia Petals, to go with her bouquet. That is said to be a simple, elegant fragrance with notes of both muguet and gardenia, so it probably paired well with her lovely flowers. Another bride who carried lilies of the valley on her wedding day was Grace Kelly; her wedding perfume is supposed to have been Creed’s Fleurissimo, commissioned specially for her and created in 1956, the year of her marriage to the Prince of Monaco. Fleurissimo has notes of bergamot, tuberose, Bulgarian Rose, violet, Florentine iris and ambergris, and it is gorgeous although I find it doesn’t last very long. I’m sure it would smell marvelous next to lilies of the valley.

Grace Kelly on her wedding day, 1956

If you want to try out some of the suggested pairings without spending a fortune on a lilies-of-the-valley bouquet, here’s an idea: layer any or each of those fragrances with Jo Malone’s limited edition Lily of the Valley and Ivy. Jo Malone fragrances are meant to be either worn alone or layered with another fragrance, and Lily of the Valley and Ivy is a very lovely, true, green muguet scent.

Have you ever tried pairing perfumes with fragrant fresh flowers? What combinations would you suggest?